


Dance Like Nobody's Watching

by giantsequoia



Series: Star-crossed [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 22:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11300037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantsequoia/pseuds/giantsequoia
Summary: For a prompt. Shepard finds ways to entertain himself while he waits for Kaidan to come home.





	Dance Like Nobody's Watching

Shepard was in a _really_ good mood. The war had been over for months, and reconstruction was well underway. The _Normandy_ crew were taking a long, well-deserved vacation; Shepard and Kaidan were spending it together at Kaidan’s house in British Columbia, which had survived the war miraculously undamaged.

Midmorning after a night of vigorous sex, Shepard awoke when the sunlight streaming through the window finally climbed high enough to reach his face. He squinted with his eyes still closed, then slowly blinked them open. He stretched with a wordless murmur of contentment, luxuriating in the feeling of smooth, clean sheets sliding over his skin. He turned over, hoping for a good-morning kiss.

Kaidan wasn’t there. Shepard was disappointed, but it made sense. Judging by the height of the sun in the sky outside, he’d slept in quite a bit. That was okay.

Glancing around for some sign of where his husband might have gone – for Kaidan was meticulous about never going anywhere without letting Shepard know where and for how long – his eyes fell on the expected note in the most obvious spot on the nightstand.

_Gone looking for groceries for lunch. I expect I wore you out last night, so I’ll let you sleep. Back around noon. –K_

Shepard snorted indelicately. “Oh, sure, _sure_ ,” he said to the room at large. “You were panting just as hard as I was by the end of it, Kaidan, but yeah. You wore _me_ out. Okay.”

He laughed at the commentary that was purely by and for himself, then sat up. He spent some time rubbing a slight crick out of his neck and running some re-sync protocols on his cybernetics from his omni-tool. Then he stood up and went to have a shower.

Shepard still marvelled at the simple, wonderful pleasure of standing in a jet of hot water for as long as he liked. During the war he had never been able to afford to spend more time on bathing than what was minimally necessary to stay clean.

It was especially excellent here because Kaidan had one of those complicated shower heads with a bunch of different settings. A few of them were just _perfect_ for massaging out the soreness that always seem to develop overnight along his spine and in his legs around his synthetic parts.

Once he was clean and dry and feeling like he could run and jump around and biotically fling heavy shit if he really wanted to, he put on a pair of boxer-briefs and went wandering.

The house was large and spacious, with tall glass windows overlooking the bay. It was located in the boundary zone where the immense megalopolis of Seattle-Vancouver slowly bled into the northern wilderness, so there were trees and greenery about.

Recent reconstruction efforts had cleaned up a lot of wreckage and debris from the war. Down the hill towards the lake, Shepard could see people of all colours and species moving about – carrying packages, operating vehicles, working on projects, and just enjoying others’ company and the beautiful summer day.

This was his Earth – this was his _home_ – and seeing his people healthy and productive and safe made Shepard so happy that he started crying.

He indulged his emotions for a few minutes and then decided to get a grip. A glance at his omni-tool informed him that it wasn’t quite eleven hundred hours, so Kaidan wouldn’t be home for at least an hour yet. How to entertain himself?

He sat on the couch, still in his underwear, and turned on the TV. He flipped around for a bit, looking for something interesting, but nothing caught his eye. Besides, he wanted to get up and _move._

That was easy enough to arrange. He turned on some music, fired up Kaidan’s treadmill, and ran for a while.

The exercise got his heart rate up nicely, but after fifteen minutes or so it was getting boring. The music was nice, but the view from the living room window was always the same: beautiful bay, beautiful sky, beautiful trees, beautiful moving tiny people. Maybe he should go for a run outside, see more of the area and interact with some locals.

That was a good idea, but it might be more fun if Kaidan went with him. He’d suggest it later. What to do in the meantime?

Shepard scrolled through the music options, hoping for inspiration. He came across something catchy and vey dance-to-able.

“Nice,” he said, easing into a little jig as the beat picked up. He told the house VI to queue up a bunch of similar stuff and started dancing as though no one was watching, which was an accurate description of the situation.

Maybe the VI somehow sensed his restlessness, but the songs it picked seemed to get a little bit faster and catchier with each new one that came up.

Soon Shepard was not only jigging, but twisting and swinging, and occasionally leaping and flailing as well. It felt _wonderful_. The cool air of the house on his mostly nude body, the watery sunlight streaming in through the windows, the overwhelming sense of peace and happiness that seemed to emanate from the very planet – it was altogether intoxicating.

Shepard danced all around the house, leaping from room to room and occasionally doing some biotic flips just for the fuck of it. The music went with him, playing in every room at a gradually increasing volume. He spun in circles until he was dizzy, balanced on the tip-toes of one or both feet, and did cartwheels and handstands. He was careful never to get too exuberant – he didn’t want to break any of Kaidan’s stuff. There were still a few near misses.

He ended up in the kitchen, bouncing and bending every which way and vocalizing enthusiastically into a spoon (no words, just a lot of “ba ba ba bum bum _bum_ ” and “deet doot _daaah_ , oh _yyyeeeaah_ ” and so on and so forth). When he wasn’t “singing”, he swept his arms out in a wide circle around him, stretching as wide as he could to encircle the whole galaxy in a hug.

Eventually one of his spins carried his line of sight in a particular direction, and that was when he noticed Kaidan standing at the door with brown paper grocery bags in his arms, stock-still and staring with a wide, open-mouthed grin on his face.

The music kept playing, but Shepard could almost _hear_ the record-scratch in his head.

He froze in position: staring at Kaidan, balanced on one foot with his other leg stretched out behind him like a figure skater, his arms spread for balance, a spoon in one hand and his other bearing his lit omni-tool as it played a flashy, sparkly, music-visualization program in accompaniment. Also he was still in his underwear.

“No, _please_ ,” Kaidan entreated him, setting down his groceries on the counter and moving forward with hands outstretched. “Don’t stop on my account. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”

Shepard cleared his throat and resumed a normal stance, face burning as he tapped a few commands on his omni-tool. The flashy visualization stopped, and the music reduced significantly in volume. His tool said it was 11:40.

“I... didn’t break anything,” he said, only realizing as it came out that that made it sound like he _had_ broken something and then guiltily fixed it. “You’re back early.”

Kaidan laughed and took his hands. “The lineup was less than I thought it would be,” he said. “Shall we?”

He started guiding Shepard into a dance that was less energetic than what he’d walked in on, but still appropriate to the music.

“You were really good,” he commented.

Shepard rolled his eyes, still blushing. “Nah,” he said. “Nobody thinks I’m a good dancer. They tell me I am to my face because I’m Commander Saviour-Messiah-Chosen-Promised-One Shepard of the Galaxy, but... I know I’m terrible. You don’t have to-”

“Bullshit,” Kaidan interrupted, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek as he pulled Shepard along. “You’re utterly marvellous, and I’ll lift grenade anyone who says otherwise, including you. Come on, dance with me.”

Feeling overwhelmed with happiness and love, Shepard kissed him back – on the lips, for about thirty seconds – and then obliged. Together they laughed and danced, and eventually Kaidan started to feel overdressed and stripped down as well, and one thing led to another. They ate lunch late that day.


End file.
